Posted on 04/18/2014 9:36:32 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) today sharply criticized federal agents for shutting down an unlicensed radio station in Grove Hall and said he tried to dissuade them from raiding the station that bills itself as the fabric of the black community.
Patrick, the state’s first African-American governor, said he had received advanced warning from the US attorney’s office that TOUCH 106.1 FM was going to be raided and urged the office not to proceed.
But federal agents disregarded him. They swept into the station Thursday and seized transmission equipment in what they called a strike against illegally operating radio stations.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Last year:
http://www.enterprisenews.com/x1905499940/Pirate-radio-station-in-Brockton-flagged-for-interference
>>Firefighters driving to work at the Pleasant Street station on the edge of downtown started reporting interference on their car radios this week.
Then on Wednesday, music started playing over the speakers in the station used for dispatching fire engines and garbling emergency communications.
“In the station, those speakers are used to alert firefighter to an incident, and that’s how we get the type of call and location,” said Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Galligan. “Any interference is a serious issue.”
...They discovered a satellite dish and an FM antenna on a radio mast directly across the street from Fire Station 1 at 69 Pleasant St..
The antenna extended nearly 60 feet in the air and an unlicensed station was broadcasting on 88.9 MHz, right next to WERS in Boston, DeNapoli said.
Yeah, if you’re operating outside the law, you don’t want to step on toes.
For background, here’s a list of other FCC actions against pirates from 2000 through 2013:
http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/sed/ulo.html
Some folks think they have a right to operate outside of the law, because somebody was mean to their great-great-great-grandpa. We’re the ones who need to sharpen up.
There are a lot of $10k penalties. This bunch had better see a fine of $10K as well.
take the EPA for example. There are legitimate environmental concerns but this agency is nothing but an oppressive tool of the left. How about the IRS? The BATF? Could any activity from these agencies ever be trusted to be legitimate?
They were fined $17K in 2008. Was that fine ever paid?
I’m guessing it wasn’t.
This is like getting caught for speeding, getting the ticket fixed, then going back on the road and going even faster knowing you can’t be touched. (Pun not intended, or maybe it was, heh, heh.)
I got the point. The FCC has had their own enforcement arm for this for eons, they don’t want to farm this out to locals who might be predisposed to softsoap the perps, which in this case would be a pretty good bet (they’re race-hustling pals of fellow race-hustler pols. They’ve been allowed to get away with flagrantly breaking the law for 7-8 years because they’re the correct race).
I understand what you’re saying. But, the FCC is not the EPA or IRS. It’s not proper trying to shoehorn all alphabet soup agencies into the same model of enforcement. I’ve already been called all sorts of names for suggesting the FCC is the appropriate tool for the job in this case. If the violations are a technology issue, you need technology people seizing the evidence, not LEOs. AFAIK, LEOs were there to ensure no violence was committed against the FCC people.
One of the big gripes I hear around here is over the selective enforcement of laws.
Was this station operating in accordance with the law?
Obviously, it was not.
Should the law be changed? Perhaps, but that’s the job of Congress, not unelected bureaucrats.
The fact remains-this unlicensed station came to the attention of the FCC as early as 2008. At the time, they apparently did not take action to permanently shut it down, as the law allows.
If you read through the descriptions of other enforcement actions, pirates frequently shut down only temporarily and then restart.
Why did the FCC wait until 2014 to finish the job they started in 2008?
The corruption here is not that they shut the station down in 2014, it’s that they didn’t permanently shut it down in 2008.
You seem to miss the whole point of my post
but since you asked
“So the government should step in and tell us what speech is allowed?”
The government has ALWAYS been able to determine what “ free speech” is free and which is not
Free speech must NOT directly encourage others to commit specific criminal actions of their own.
I didn’t set the guidelines and I may not agree with them BUT they are set and calling for white people to be killed ( or black or red) would not be considered free speech
Ah, I see that now that you pointed it out. No mention if the fine was paid, but it does give credence to why this was a “raid.” Not the first offense.
They can still triangulate a pirate's general location as long as he stays on the air long enough to have an audience. Then, when the black helicopters get within line of sight range, he will be found easily.
The real reason shortwave pirates don't get caught is that nobody cares, as long as the pirate isn't jamming something somebody important (such as DOD or VOA) cares about. And, with the rise of the internet and super high bandwidth undersea fiber optic cable connectivity, shortwave in general is of less and less importance.
I suspect, nobody much cared is also more or less why it took so long to bust TOUCH. But why now?
Bottom line is how much of a threat was this station to you and your family compare to that of an ever increasing oppressive government that chooses to enforce arbitrary regulations using brute force military units with military weapons and training. Pick you battles wisely. This radio station operating from the hood seems trivial to me.
You may be right. 6.925 is in the 43 meter band which is heavily used by the Military, I'm somewhat curious as to the risk of a shortwave pirate being caught in that band is. Skywave is difficult to triangulate, especially so during scatter conditions when many shortwave pirates seem to target their transmissions. The Military likely has the capabilities to triangulate under those conditions, I'm not so sure the FCC does given how their budget has been stripped to next to nothing and their primary focus is now fraud under the Obamaphone program......
The FCC has been shutting down illegal broadcasters for close to a century.
It’s easy for you to say this is a trivial matter, but this about political favoritism exempting certain groups from the rule of law, and then un-exempting them when the political climate has changed.
This issue of an illegal radio station in the inner city is just a small symptom of a much bigger problem. Just look at what’s going on at the IRS and the DOJ.
This sort of politically-driven double standard might not be as blatant as jack booted thugs stealing cattle, but it’s corrosive to what’s left of our republic just the same.
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